Not Forgotten
by Morfiwen
Summary: Snape meets an old acquaintance.


A/N: The italics are in song. Sing it however you wish, as it is meant to be a slow song. Kind of like The Kook's The Seaside.

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_'I still remember, those younger days.'_

I leaned upon the balustrade, my pale yellow robes a contrast to its glumness. I could feel the wind playfully lift the fabric ever so slightly, and my hair of varnished oak flowed with its game. My eyes, however, focused on a lonely figure grasping the edges of the stone barrier, his face contorted in anguish.

_'You were always so sad, and I never knew why.'_

Tears fell like rain.

"Still, Severus?" I asked him gently. Startled, he immediately ceased his reverie, and the mask of indifference replaced the man who hurt-deeply. He couldn't hide the streaks of tears on his face. I willed a hankerchief to appear in my hand and was about to dab it on his face when swiftly, his hand smacked mine away.

_'Maybe I always knew, but was afraid to ask.'_

"I need not your pity, Madam!" he snapped.

I wore a bland face, as always when with him. His greasy straight locks hung down as defeated as his spirit, and yet in his dark eyes a fire burned still behind the mask. If things were different...

Ah, no need to dwell, now.

_'Your eyes held mine, while I couldn't turn away.'_

"What are you doing here, Madam?" he asked me. "Why are you here?"

"I am here, Severus, because my son is here. I am here as a concerned parent," I replied softly.

_'We have our differences, and yet we were.'_

"Your son?" he said, startled. I am accustomed to it, as I am unmarried. Wizards can be such prudes sometimes. Then again, I am muggle born, of a highly conservative society, no less. I gave my son a choice that I was given once, though I chose the life of a Muggle herbalogist, growing and acquiring the ingredients needed for potions. It feels good to step foot in this place again, despite it all.

"Helios Al-Azhar." There were puzzlement in his eyes, for the surname is mine, not another man's. I could not help but notice that he still has overly generous lashes, almost feminine and a ripple of warmth emitted from the depths of my heart, spreading to the tips of my fingers. Perhaps it was why I did what I did then.

_'Once it was you, and then it was me.'_

"No doubt, Madam he is..." I placed a finger on his lips to silence him, and he did not brush my hand away this time. I did not wish him to sully my son's origins, at least not now.

"I ask you to care for him as you would your own House, even though he is a Hufflepuff, like me. Maybe, he would surprise you."

_'Do you remember when we kissed? When I held you in my arms?'_

His eyes did not change, and I wondered then, if he remembered those days after all. I remembered how beastly James and his Marauders were towards him. I was a minority, my ways strange to most. At that time there weren't many foreign migrant Hogwarts students, and so I kept to myself to avoid prejudice, including the God that my family served. HE is always silent, and we wizards serve no one.

_'Maybe to you, I wasn't much after all.'_

One night, as I trod the empty hallways of Hogwarts, grieving the death of my father in the hands of racist Muggles, I found that I was not alone. His tears, like now, ran like gleaming pearls, only he left it rolling down his face, dripping from his chin. One look was all that it took. Somehow, somewhere, we just knew.

_'I was alone, baby, and so was you.'_

Then, I held out my hand, and he simply stood there, unmoving. I knew about the incident though when I met him thus, we were in the end of our final year, and I vaguely could guess his personal life. Mine, after all, was not much different. The world is cruel to the likes of us.

To my surprise, he took it.

_'Once it was you, and then it was me.'_

I had no illusions then, and after. It was what it was, we gave what we could and took what we needed. After graduation, we left, never to meet each other again.

Until now, that is.

"If he slacks, Madam, I will not hesitate to punish him," he said in his rather sonorous voice. I smiled brightly.

"I ask for nothing less."

_'and that's all it's going to be.' _

Helios inherited his eyes.

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A/N : An idea that won't get off my head somehow. One night stand turned into something that they both remembered, especially for her.


End file.
